Archive for August 2008

So, I’ve been quiet since I’ve been found. Obviously the last few days have not been easy. We’ve had some honest discussions and some long arguments. I think we are working through things and I think things will get better.

For those of you that have been concerned. Thank you. I am okay.

This will be my last post. After much arguing, I’ve agreed I’m going to stay away from the blogosphere. I am not sure if this is the right thing for me, but I think it’s the right thing for my relationship. I can’t keep hiding things from him and as much as I hated it before, I certainly couldn’t do it now.

I do understand his reasons for his request for me to stop. I think he resents the fact I’ve found it easier to write to an audience of strangers than I have to talk to him. He obviously hates the fact that I have lied to him and kept all of this from him, even after I’d told him I was going to be more honest. I hated lying to him too, but I don’t think this blog would have been open if I hadn’t kept it from him. It does make our relationship difficult though. I know we need to trust each other and all these secrets have made that very hard.

He tells me he doesn’t want this illness to become part of my identity. I didn’t want that either and it is the reason I remained anonymous, but I think he is worried that by focussing on my depression and indulging in this blog I’m possibly making it part of my identity and almost holding onto the illness. I don’t think I have been, but I can see why he may worry or think that.

He worries that by reading other blogs and talking to other people that have experienced depression I will find it harder to get over it or recover. I’m not sure this is true either. I have found your support, advice and experience valuable. When I have thought that I won’t get through this, reading about those of you who are recovering helps. When I have worried about medication and treatment, reading your experiences and advice has been helpful. Just knowing that you understand what some of this feels like can make it seem easier, as it really can feel that no one understands.

Anyway, this is my last post. I will leave the blog there, but I am going to resist the urge to sign in and am going to step away from the blogosphere. I know I am going to find it hard, but I want to prove to my partner that I am doing everything I can to get better, because I know if I don’t, we’ll struggle to keep going and I don’t want that.

To everyone that has ever commented on here. Thanks and take care. I hope you all continue to find your blogs helpful and that you do all recover from this, or at least learn to live with it.

My self-control is lacking, to the extent my partner has changed the password on my intothesystem email account to stop me from breaking my promise. It makes me sick that it comes to this, but it has, so please don’t email me there. Comments are also disabled on this post.

It’s still quiet in the blogosphere. I’m not really feeling in the mood to write much myself and it seems I’m not the only one.

Last night I had a bit of a scare. My dad emailed me at work and of course my out of office is on. He saw it and questioned what it said (That I am out of the office until further notice!). F*ck! He put me on the spot so I kinda mumbled some excuse about sticking the out of office on so that I didn’t get bothered and could focus on some important work, but I’m not sure he bought it. I hate lying to him, but I didn’t know what else to do. I know I should really have taken that opportunity to be honest, but I was just too scared. Sadly, this exchange only served to make me confused, stressed and agitated, worrying endlessly about the repercussions of people knowing and the fact I don’t think I can be honest with my family ever. I struggled most of the night with recurrent thoughts that it would be just easier to not be here. The usual I guess.

Not only was that conversation still on my mind, but I was fidgety again and unable to sleep. In the end, my other half kicked me out of the bed and sent me downstairs to take my energy out on the Wii. So I was in my living room, playing Mario and Sonic at the Olympics at 2am! It didn’t really help much unfortunately, so I spent the next few hours staring out of the window again. I’m getting fed up of it. I have no idea why I seem to acquire a ton of agitated energy at 11pm every day. I guess I do need to do more in the day and try and tire myself out, but I just feel sick all the time!

This morning, I got an appointment letter through for another occupational health assessment. It’s a different doctor and this time I can’t find anything out about him, which I find a little scary. Usually when you google a doctor or surgery you can at least find out what their specialism is or something. The appointment isn’t until September either! Much longer to wait compared to last time and it scares me to think that I can’t imagine making it through the next four weeks. I find it hard to think ahead a few days, let alone a few weeks.

Today has been another mixed day. Started feeling low, followed by a short period of feeling fairly up and cheery, followed by a quick change to miserable and now headed towards agitation again. All accompanied by nausea, although it seemed a bit better during the “up” periods – probably why I was feeling okay!! The thing is, it feels like this is never going to get better. The intrusive thoughts are there pretty much constantly, even in the more up periods and I just feel physically “bleh” all the time. I’m not struggling with the real extremes of my mood, but I’m finding this constant fluctuation between varying degrees of crapness or agitation equally difficult. It somehow feels like I’ll never be able to cope with normal life again. I’m not even sure I can remember what “normal” life felt like.

My life seems to be an endless stream of pointless days, filled with nausea, headaches and boredom. I sit at my laptop, trying to stave off the nausea that threatens almost constantly, refreshing three pages continuously, waiting for information to appear.

As always, I’m trying to write, but struggling to get my thoughts down. I seem to be collecting draft posts with one or two lines in them.

I am fed up of waiting to feel better. Three and a half weeks of mind-control pills and nothing seems to have changed much. I have just added side effects to the constant up and down and endless negative thoughts.

Last night, I’d returned to my state as a crumpled-up ball of agitated energy, fidgeting constantly and unable to slow down my thoughts. I had to retire to the spare room, where I could drum my fingers to my hearts content and stare out the window at the stars and clouds, waiting for daylight. I got some sleep, but I don’t think there was much. I wanted so desperately to sleep so I could get some respite from the endless nausea.

Today, the agitation has settled down a bit, although I can still feel the tension and energy bubbling away in the background. My thoughts are still far from clear, but are not the constant barrage that they were in the night. I am tired of this continual cycle. I am tired of everything.

So I returned home for the weekend. I’m always astonished at how little that place moves on. We went into town on Saturday and it’s still the same faces and same places. Since I left home four years ago, so little has changed. The only notable difference is that M&S Simply Food, Costa and Pizza Express have moved in, obviously trying to turn this little town into an identikit, affluent small town. No doubt more will follow. It’s the faces that get me though. The same people, living the same dull lives. I see people from my school and they seem so far left behind. They’ve not moved on. It’s weird.

I’m not sure the title of hometown glory is quite right. Perhaps, hometown misery would be more accurate. Of course the title really comes from the Adele song of that name. It’s a song I definitely associate with this episode, the episode that continues a pace. It doesn’t lift my mood, only stands to fuel it, but I’ve never been one to turn to happy bouncy music to cheer myself up. It doesn’t work and only makes me irritated. Before I was off work, I listened to it on repeat during my commute, turning the volume up and shutting out the world, driving too fast and not caring if I make it. I know how irresponsible that is and I’d hate for anyone to get hurt, but I just hoped it would be only me.

I have to drive those roads today and I know it will be a risk. It is always a risk. I don’t care enough about my life to be careful. My car needs servicing and the garage is next to my work, so I will drive those roads again. Since I was off work, new signs have gone up. They say 4 deaths in 3 years or 79 casualties in 3 years or 46 collisions in 3 years. I know they are designed to make you think and slow down, but every time I see them, they only serve to make me wish I could add myself to those statistics. An “accident” would be easier. It wouldn’t hurt my family as much. Of course they would be upset, but they wouldn’t have to live with the knowledge that I’d killed myself. The knowledge that I was so selfish and careless that I didn’t think of them.

I made it through the weekend.

I got drunk on Saturday night in an attempt to make it easier to pretend. It was a strange evening. I was giddy and hyper, playing the games and singing along to the music, yet given a moment to my real thoughts I was full of sadness. Alone in the bathroom, I hurt myself for the first time in a while. Just superficial scratches with a sharp pin I saw lying around, but I musn’t have been feeling things as I have lasting marks. The reason I used to scratch was to give short sharp pain, quickly but leaving only feint marks that would fade. I must have done it harder than before, as the marks still haven’t faded and I can still feel them. I see them now and want to do more, but I need to be able to hide. No one has noticed the scratches yet. I hope it stays that way.

Throughout the weekend, there was a lot of talking about friends and people from school. X is in australia, Y is just finishing medicine at Cardiff, Z is in London on the west end. It’s a small town so everyone wants to know everyone. You get the idea. I think part of this came from seeing my music teacher and choir director on Last Choir Standing and from Nicole Cooke winning her gold medal. Nicole’s father was my A Level physics teacher. It was a weekend of thinking about people and how they have moved on, how they have been left behind or how they’ve left me behind.

The one that shocked me though, the one that has had the lasting effect, was something my mother said. Talking about an old school colleague of mine, my mum jumps in with “the one that has really fallen off the rails is her brother, J. He’s a manic depressive. Really bad. I bet his sister spends all of her time trying to stop him killing himself”. This shook me. I hadn’t known he was ill and I was horrified to hear the way my mother referred to him. It was like he’d become a criminal, not mentally ill. I hated her for it. I am worried about him. I’ve tried to look him up on facebook, tried to find out if what she said is true. There are signs of it on her sister’s wall in his comments (trying to reassure her he’s okay), but I can’t view his profile, so I don’t know. I hope he is okay.

Of course, the other effect of this outburst is one on me and my relationship with my parents. My family do not know I’ve been ill. They ask about work and I have to be economical with the truth. I talk about it passively, saying that there’s a lot on, but not mentioning the fact I’m not doing it. I hate that I can’t be honest with them, but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know if I could ever tell them. Knowing my mother’s prejudice makes it impossible. I know she doesn’t understand and she’s just ignorant, but I’m not sure I want to try and convince her otherwise. I wish I could talk to my dad, but I don’t want to hurt him and I think if he knew how I felt, knew my longing for death, he’d be heartbroken. I love my dad. We’re close and I hate lying to him, but I can’t handle the thought of my mother knowing. I hate the fact I can’t promise him I’d never do anything stupid. I hate how I resent my love for him, because I know it makes it harder for me to give into my thoughts and just makes this a never ending battle, in which I feel I can never win. It’s a relationship I struggle with and this secrecy makes it harder, yet easier too. I don’t know if things will ever change. I worry that they only will only find out if I’m ever hospitalised or kill myself and I’m not sure I’d be able to explain, but then I think that might just be the easiest way. I have this fear of hospitalisation, because I know that I couldn’t hide things from them if that ever happened. It builds this fear of honesty, fear of medical professionals and fear of the unknown.

I am struggling with nausea and have to get ready now. The physical effects of this are getting me down too. I haven’t been sick yet, but came closest this morning. I worry I might actually vomit though if I get in the car. I have no choice though. I’ve booked this appointment and I hate to cancel. I will find the energy some how.

I feel pretty awful right now. I’ve lost what good was mixed in with my mood and am just left with the terrible concentration, frustration and gloominess.

Physically, I’m feeling pretty terrible too. I have a splitting headache, am hot and bothered and feel sick. Last night my gums bled after I brushed my teeth and I woke up this morning with shaking hands, although that seems to have calmed down now. I have no idea if I’m actually ill or if they are all just stupid side effects or if it’s a combination, but I’m fed up. I wonder if I’m just been paranoid and it’s some evil placebo effect or if the medication can really be making me feel like this. I don’t know what to think or do about it.

Has anyone else had similar experiences with Fluoxetine?

We’re visiting my family this weekend. They don’t know about any of this, which means it could be a difficult weekend if I’m struggling with side-effects and having to put up my happy-front. I’m not sure I can face it.

Meh. I think I’m just going to go back to bed. I have stuff to do today, but I just feel awful.

p.s. is it just me or is the blogosphere quiet at the moment? I hope everyone is okay. I find myself refreshing the blog surfer page and wishing there was more to read.

Last night I got very little sleep. I was fidgety, so much so, my other half sent me to the spare room. I couldn’t sleep, so sat up and tried to read. I managed to settle into my book eventually and I read for a few hours, but when I stopped I still couldn’t settle down and sleep. It was getting light before I was even asleep, but I was awake again before my other half got up for work.

My mood is still mixed. Both up and bouncy, irritable and agitated, sad and low. I’m not sure how you can feel all those things at once, or at least within quick succession of each other, but it seems you can.

I seem to be experiencing a strange side effect of the medication, or at least that’s what I assume it is. Since yesterday, I’ve felt like there is a ball of cotton wool wedged at the back of my throat, making it sore and dry. There isn’t, my tonsils seem fine and I don’t have any other signs of a cold so I don’t think I’m imagining it. I looked at the fluoxetine leaflet and dry mouth and sore throat are both listed, so I’m going to blame it on that for now, unless it does turn into a cold or tonsillitis during the next few days. It’s frustrating though. Not particularly painful, just there and annoying. When you’re irritable anyway, you don’t need something niggling away. Swallowing isn’t exactly comfortable either.

Aside from that I’m struggling to do anything much, yet getting annoyed that I’m so bored. I don’t really know what to do with myself. I want to do things, but then I don’t because I can’t concentrate and get frustrated too easily. I find myself flitting from thing to thing but settling on nothing.

A classic example of this, seems to be the fact that I can’t seem to bring myself to write any more right now. I don’t know what to say and am bored of myself already. I’ll try again soon.

EDIT: There is actually more I want to write about! That’s another problem. My Short term memory and attention span is terrible at the moment. What I have to write about is too long and complex for me to work out right now. It involves HR, liability, suicide and other things, but it isn’t clear in my head. Maybe later.